"Eureka Amazon Project: Nude Hoplites" Topic

Let's see if we can skip over the first phases of pedantry here and jump straight to the end. Someone is going to say, "These are not hoplites," because there's no helmet, cuirass, or greaves. And they'd be *mostly* right. For the vast majority of the time that hoplites dominated eastern mediterranean conflict as heavy infantry they wore all three in bronze. But right at the end of hoplite dominance Iphicrates came along in the early fourth century and lightened the equipment for tactical and operational reasons. The greaves were dropped, the heavy bronze shield as replaced with a leather-faced shield, and the cuirass was made of quilted linen. To make up for the loss of protection the spear was lengthened to 10-12 feet.

So while these certainly are not iconic hoplites, they could be Alexandrian hoplites. Even though helmets are the first piece of armor any troops acquire they're often left off of fantasy figures (and movie characters) because we like to see faces. The cuirass is left off for reasons it's more dignified not to discuss. But while these assumptions explain the lack of helmet, cuirass, and greaves the spears should still be longer.

But since no one is buying these figures for strictly historical games, this is all moot. Forget I brought it up.

A full moon army.

:D

LOL, Andrew! Great post. Legitimately educational. Thank you! Cheers!

Nice figures, except for the wet spaghetti Spears. It seems strange that every one of these figures has the same color hair. It's like they are identical decituplets. Same style and color hair, skin tones and Eye color.

I really wonder why they did not bother to give them straight spears for promotional photos.

Mea culpa. You can't expect spears to stay straight while shipping all across the globe. I should have done a better job of straightening them upon arrival from the painters.

Also, I see in the pics that one of them has chipped paint on the spear, so I need to repair that, too!

Who are they going to fight? Rules? What's the plan for these? Are they part of a larger force?

I realized later that "nude hoplite" is probably an oxymoron.

Who are they going to fight? Rules? What's the plan for these? Are they part of a larger force?

It's been so long that I've forgotten the plan. Time for a new plan? I think my Simians need someone to fight…

I seem to recall a minor manufacturer that had a line of Amazon figures as well as a set of rules for them. Just now I am having a senior moment and can't recall the name.

Well , Eureka themselves have a really nice range of Amazons. Some with armour other without; I simply love the Chariot Runners and the lightly – and skyclad- Pelasts.

Foundry has some Amazons in their Ancients ranges, and then there's Arcane Scenery.

Warlord Games carry the rather fanciful Savage Core Amazons as well

Crocodile Games has Amazons in their Greek range but I don't like 'em as much as the others.

Wargames Factory also got a box of Amazons.
I have two of them and they are really good for the little money they costed me.

I just noticed that these were painted by Fernando. They are very well done. Those painters are excellent in their rendition of flesh.

Some variety in haircolor would've been nice. In my dealings with the company, I have prepared a checklist of sorts where I indicate what color hair there should be, varieties of skin tone, and other items that might vary from figure to figure. These folks are painters not historians, so we need to tell them what we expect if something is different from a standard.

Why?

I have had an army of these guys from Eureka for several years. I confess they were fun to paint.
I usually use them as Persians or Indians to go against my Macedonians.

The one thing I don't like is that even though they have several poses of pike, they don't mix up well, so each rank looks exactly the same.

Also with the pike, the pike itself is cast separate from the figure, and includes the hands – which makes it a real pain to replace the pike with a wire one – so much so I never bothered with it.

Some of them can be seen here (along with some old Ral Partha figs)

I have a number of these Eureka figures waiting for paint and organizing. The sculpts are adequate, in my view, but could stand some improvement for the faces. I'd like to see more Ral Partha's Tom Mier (sp?) influence, better detail and finer features. That said, I like the Hellenic look, altho' in my conception of Amazon armies, there's less need for phalangites except as protection (limited pike blocks ala ECW) for missile troops and shelter for cavalry. Fortunately, Eureka also has numbers of skirmisher figures that fill this need.